Foreign relations of Vichy France
Canada maintained diplomatic relations until the occupation of Southern France (Case Anton) by Germany and Italy in November 1942.
[4] Vichy France continued to maintain relations with the Republic of China government led by Chiang Kai-shek, who moved to Chongqing in the Chinese interior after the fall of the capital of Nanjing to the Japanese in 1937.
Vice-Admiral James Fownes Somerville, with Force H under his command, was instructed to deal with the large squadron in port at Mers El Kébir harbor near Oran in July 1940.
The United States granted Vichy full diplomatic recognition, and sent Admiral William D. Leahy to France as ambassador.
President Franklin Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull hoped to use American influence to encourage those elements in the Vichy government opposed to military collaboration with Germany.
The essential American position was that France should take no action unless it was explicitly required by the armistice terms that could adversely affect Allied efforts in the war.
Upon the Anglo-American landings in North Africa in November 1942, the Vichy government severed relations with the United States.
[10] Darlan was assassinated on 24 December 1942 and so Washington turned again towards Giraud, who was made High Commissioner of French North and West Africa.
British resident minister Harold Macmillan brought together de Gaulle and Giraud, who were disparate personalities and quite hostile to each other, to serve as co-chairmen of the Committee of National Liberation.
In March 1940, the Soviet Ambassador to France, Yakov Surits, had been declared persona non grata in his host country.
[13] To counter the Vichy regime, General Charles de Gaulle created the Free French Forces (FFL) after his Appeal of 18 June 1940 radio speech.
Initially, Winston Churchill was ambivalent about de Gaulle and dropped ties with Vichy only when it became clear that it would not fight the Germans.
The Allies were surprised by the Vichy garrison's determination to defend the colony and had expected them to change side without opposition.
During the battle for Dakar, Vichy had launched retaliatory bombing raids on Gibraltar, which caused fairly minor damage but killed several civilians.
Both German and Italian Air Force aircraft, staging through the French possession of Syria, intervened in the fighting in small numbers.
The Syrian capital, Damascus, was captured on 17 June, and the five-week campaign ended with the fall of Beirut and the Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre on 14 July 1941.
In March 1945, after Metropolitan France had been liberated, and the war situation looking increasingly grim for the Japanese, they staged a coup d'état in French Indochina, dissolved it and created puppet states of its constituent parts.
US President Franklin Roosevelt suspected that the operation in North Africa would rule out an invasion of Europe in 1943 but agreed to support British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
After Darlan had signed an armistice with the Allies and took power in North Africa, Germany invaded Vichy France on 10 November 1942 in an operation codenamed Case Anton), which triggered the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon.
General Henri Giraud had switched from Vichy to the Allies, and Roosevelt found him a preferable alternative to de Gaulle.
[15] Darlan was assassinated on 24 December 1942 in Algiers by the young monarchist Bonnier de La Chapelle, who was soon killed, probably after he had acted as part of a conspiracy involving Henri, Count of Paris.
De Gaulle wanted to pursue a political position in France and agreed to have Giraud as commander in chief as a more qualified military person.
It is questionable that he ordered that many French Resistance leaders who had helped Eisenhower's troops to be arrested, without any protest by Roosevelt's representative, Robert Murphy.
After very difficult negotiations, Giraud agreed to suppress the racist laws and to liberate Vichy prisoners of the South Algerian concentration camps.
The Cremieux decree, which granted French citizenship to Jews in Algeria and had been repealed by Vichy, was immediately restored by de Gaulle.
The Allies discussed their general strategy for the war and recognized joint leadership of North Africa by Giraud and de Gaulle.
[16] The Americans were notably cool, if not hostile, to de Gaulle, and especially resented his refusal to cooperate in the Normandy invasion of 6 June 1944 (Operation Overlord).
